Rabbi Medan answers Rabbi Lando: 'They may learn the Torah, but they are not following it'

 

Rabbi Yaakov Medan, head of Har Etzion Yeshiva, responds to the comments by the dean of the Slabodka Yeshiva Rabbi Dov Lando, considered one of the leaders of the non-Hassidic (Litvish) haredi community, against Zionism and participation in the army.

"When a great Rabbi wants to acknowledge a miracle, why does he need to disparage the soldiers and say they only interposed between God and the world? Somewhere it has been established that there are two tracks that do not intersect. We must either thank God, as is mentioned repeatedly in the Bible or thank a man, if God is to be taken out of the picture."

"The ability to know how to be grateful to soldiers and at the same time to know how dependent we are on the deeds of the Almighty, and to live with this complexity, apparently is not a self-evident thing."

Rabbi Medan emphasized, "What they are doing by not going to the army is studying Torah and not observing it. It is like studying the laws of tzitzit and not wearing tzitzit, studying the laws of tefillin, and not putting on tefillin. This thing - helping Israel in the war - is the observance of Torah."

AG Gali Baharav-Miara drew criticism from FM Gideon Sa'ar after she demanded to be consulted on the legality of Trump's plan to relocate Gaza residents.

 During the cabinet discussion held yesterday (Monday), Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara demanded that the ministers consult with her regarding the legality of US President Donald Trump's plan to relocate residents of the Gaza Strip to third countries.

Channel 13 News reported that Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, who appointed Baharav-Miara to her position, responded sharply to her demand, saying, "Trump did not consult with attorneys general before coming up with the plan."

He added: "The honorable attorney general is not the political echelon, we are the political echelon and we make the decisions. We will decide what and you tell us how."

Otzma Yehudit Chairman MK Itamar Ben-Gvir responded, "The government's only next consultation with Gali Baharav-Miara should be whether she prefers to receive her dismissal letter by hand or by email."

68 percent of the Israeli public supports US President Donald Trump's plan for the Gaza Strip, according to a poll published on Channel 12 News on Monday evening.

Beit Shemesh Finally Building a Hospital for its Residents

 

 

 The Jerusalem District Planning and Building Committee decided today to validate a plan to build a hospital in the city of Beit Shemesh. ‎

‎The plan, which applies to an area of 180 dunams in the south of the city, includes about 770 beds that will provide a solution for the city's population of half a million residents, as well as the Mateh Yehuda area. 

The plan includes five buildings that will include hospitalization departments, an emergency hospital, medical services, clinics and medical institutes, laboratories, buildings for laboratories and medical research and training, medical teams, a motel, helipads and more.‎

הוועדה המחוזית לתכנון ולבנייה מחוז ירושלים, החליטה היום על מתן תוקף לתוכנית להקמת

 בית חולים בעיר בית שמש.

התוכנית שחלה על שטח בהיקף של 180 דונם בדרום העיר, כוללת כ-770 מיטות שייתנו מענה להיקף אוכלוסייה של חצי מיליון תושבים בעיר וכן למרחב מטה יהודה. התוכנית כוללת חמישה מבנים שיכללו מחלקות אשפוז, בית חולים חירום, שירותי רפואה, מרפאות ומכונים רפואיים, מעבדות, מבנים למעבדות ומחקר רפואי והכשרה צוותי רפואה, מלונית, מנחתי מסוקים ועוד.

Mord"chele Brafman Shoots Jews in Miami Beach thinking they are Palestinians

 

A Jewish man riddled a car with bullets in Miami Beach after spotting who he thought were “two Palestinians” in it — only the victims were actually a father and son visiting from Israel, cops say.

Mordechai Brafman, a 27-year-old plumber, allegedly fired 17 shots at the Hyundai around 9:30 p.m. Saturday, wounding the two Israeli Jews inside it before driving off and getting nabbed by cops nearby, according to WSVN-TV News and Ynet News.

Brafman is now locked up and facing attempted-murder charges.

“It should be noted that while in custody in our interview room, the defendant spontaneously stated that while he was driving his truck he saw two Palestinians and shot and killed both,” police told the TV outlet, quoting the suspect as mistakenly thinking he had murdered the pair.

One of the victims was shot in his left shoulder, while the other suffered a graze wound to his arm, Ynet said.

“The victims and the defendant do not know each other,” cops added in their statement.

Police said Brafman was driving on Alton Road just north of 48th Street when he saw the two victims and made a U-turn, pulled up to the car and started shooting.

“It was a truck passing next to [us],” the younger victim, identified by WPLG-TV as Ari Revay, told the station in Hebrew. “Boom, boom, boom, and he randomly started shooting.

“He put the window down, the driver’s seat and just blasted,” Revay said. “God, life is a gift.”

Video footage posted on X by a WSVN reporter showed one of the victims with a bullet hole and bloodied t-shirt and sitting in a hospital bed.

Records show Brafman is being held without bond at the Miami-Dade County Jail.

He previously landed in the news in 2023, when he was quoted by media outlets after a local bagel shop was vandalized for flying an Israeli flag.

“It’s just horrifying,” Brafman said at the time. “I’d like to see more unity, for people to fight less with each other and be more together.”

DOGE discovers $4.7 trillion in Treasury payments were missing critical code: ‘Traceability almost impossible’

 

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) announced Monday that some $4.7 trillion in payments from the Treasury Department were missing a critical tracking code which made tracing the transactions “almost impossible.” 

The transactions were reportedly missing the Treasury Account Symbol, or TAS, an identification code which links a Treasury payment to a budget line item, according to DOGE, which described the use of such code as a “standard financial process.”

“In the Federal Government, the TAS field was optional for ~$4.7 Trillion in payments and was often left blank, making traceability almost impossible,” read an X post from DOGE.

The Elon Musk-led project to curb waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government said in light of the discovery use of the TAS code is now mandatory. 

“As of Saturday, this is now a required field, increasing insight into where money is actually going,” DOGE said, thanking the Treasury Department for its “great work” implementing the change. 

Musk touted the change as a “major improvement in Treasury payment integrity.” 

“This was a combined effort of [DOGE, Treasury and the Federal Reserve],” Musk tweeted. “Nice work by all.” 

The Treasury Department, which facilitates trillions of dollars worth of government payments every year, was one of the first agencies DOGE embedded itself in after President Trump’s inauguration. 

DOGE staffers at the Treasury have been granted access to the department’s highly sensitive payment systems in an effort to root out waste, fraud and abuse. 

“This is not some roving band … This is methodical and it is going to yield big savings,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said of DOGE during a Bloomberg TV interview last week. 

DOGE recently proposed “deleting paper checks” at Treasury, arguing that it would save taxpayers “at least $750 million per year.”

The initiative noted that the Treasury Department must keep “a physical lockbox” to collect the more than 100 million checks it processes each year, which costs about $2.40 per check to maintain. 

In fiscal year 2023, some $25 billion in tax refunds were delayed or lost due to returned or expired checks, according to DOGE. 

IDF investigation into the massacre at the Nova Festival reveals that Hamas intended to attack Netivot, but reached the festival instead due to a navigation error

 

An IDF investigation into the massacre at the Supernova festival near Re'im reveals that the Hamas force that attacked the festival had initially intended to attack Netivot, but got lost along the way.

Kan reports that the force was part of the Nuseirat Brigade and numbered between 100-120 terrorists, under battalion and company commanders.

They crossed the Gaza-Israel border in the second wave, at 7:30 AM, in 14 trucks and two motorcycles.

The terrorists were equipped with two heavy machine guns, three medium machine guns, anti-tank RPGs, and SA 7 launchers for air defense. In addition, each terrorist had personal weapons like Kalashnikovs and grenades.

Due to a navigational error, they missed their original target and moved eastward in Be'eri Forest, passed Kibbutz Beeri, and began traveling along Route 232. They reached the festival region at 8:10 but only encountered the festival itself at 9:00.

The terrorists left the festival area around 10:10 and moved northward. They encountered military forces and turned towards Be'eri. Those who abducted the party-goers immediately returned to Gaza. Those who attacked Be'eri were mostly killed in the ensuing battle.

In addition to the Nuseirat Brigade from Hamas, other non-organized terrorists also attacked the Supernova festival.

364 people were murdered at the festival, most of them young adults. 44 others were captured.

Why those T-shirts were brilliant

 

The absolute worst thing for them was to be publicly shamed, which is precisely why putting them in the shirts - with their resonant message - was a brilliant move. And the fact that they burned them upon arriving home is further proof that it affected them

As Israel again released the most barbaric Palestinian Arab terrorists in the next phase of the hostage deal - including those with the blood of hundreds of Jews on their hands - they were photographed wearing shirts with a Star of David on the front, along with the message, 

We Will Not Forgive and We Will Not Forget. 

Absurdly, as the world expressed its outrage over this “torture,” a deeper problem was exposed within our own community. It is that many Jews, and even Israelis, simply do not understand the nature of Islam, or the Middle East, or our Islamonazi enemies.

Poll: Majority of Israelis fear massacre in Judea and Samaria

 

A new survey conducted by the Jerusalem Center for Foreign Affairs (JCFA) reveals a concerning statistic: the majority of Israeli public (62%) fears an attack similar to the October 7th massacre from the Palestinians of Judea and Samaria.

The fear is especially high among the Jewish public, with 68% expressing concern, compared to only 25% of Arab respondents. The findings also indicate that a majority of the Arab public in Israel (56%) opposes the Palestinian Authority being part of the future arrangement in Gaza.

The survey was conducted among a representative sample of over 700 Jewish and Arab participants aged 18-65. It was conducted after President Trump announced his plan for Gaza.

The new findings highlight that the Israeli public is very clear about its expectations from the Israeli leadership on "the day after." Using an online respondent panel, participants were asked about their views regarding the establishment of a Palestinian state, Trump's plan for migration from Gaza, normalization with Saudi Arabia, the possibility of Israel bombing Iran's nuclear program, and even the fear of a future war with Egypt in light of recent publications.

The survey results indicate that 67% of Israelis oppose the establishment of a Palestinian state along the '67 borders following the events of October 7. While among Jewish respondents, opposition is higher (75%), 42% of Arab respondents support the establishment of a Palestinian state unconditionally (an increase of 10% from the previous survey).

The opposition to establishing a Palestinian state persists even if the reward is normalization with Saudi Arabia – an opposition consistently above 60%.

Regarding the possibility that Hamas will remain in Gaza as a civilian entity, an overwhelming majority of survey participants (82%) oppose such a scenario: nearly all Jewish public (90%), compared to 33% of Arabs in Israel opposing. Even stronger opposition (88%) was found among Israelis to the idea that at the end of the war Hamas would remain as a ruling military entity: 94% of Jewish respondents opposed, compared to lower opposition among Arab respondents (46%).

According to the data, 60% of Israelis also oppose incorporating the Palestinian Authority into the future arrangement in Gaza, with Jewish opposition particularly high (66%). On the other hand, the Arab public is divided in its views – 44% support Palestinian Authority involvement, 25% oppose it, and 31% expressed no opinion on the matter.

When asked about their views on Trump's plan for the Gaza Strip, an overwhelming majority of Israelis (75%) supported the idea of willing emigration, while most Arab respondents (58%) opposed it.

The survey further reveals that 71% of Israelis support establishing buffer zones along the borders with Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza in the long term, out of the belief that physical separation will help prevent future attacks. Furthermore, 61% of respondents support an Israeli military strike against Iran's nuclear program, with 38% of them believing it should be coordinated with the U.S., and 23% even supporting unilateral action without coordination.

In light of recent publications suggesting the possibility of a war developing with Egypt, most Israelis (55%) are not worried about it in the foreseeable future – with no difference between Jewish and Arab respondents in Israel. However, 33% of Israelis still believe a war with Egypt is a possible scenario and express concern, compared to 12% who expressed no opinion on the matter.

Kfir Bibas Will Turn 2 today in captivity

 

Smotrich orders the seizure of 320 million shekels from PA to pay Israeli Victims of Terror

 

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich orders the seizure of 320 million shekels (~$87M USD) from Palestinian tax funds to compensate Israeli families affected by Palestinian terror.